GoT reactions, penultimate episode
May. 15th, 2019 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI haven't been watching the latest season, I probably would have enjoyed seeing what happened, but I felt like I didn't have time to watch them as they came out, so I'd almost certainly hear spoilers anyway, and I'd rather just read some summaries so I can join in the reactions and watch them another time (or only in the next readthrough).
But unsurprisingly I have opinions :)
Questions
So there was lots of people asking, "Was Jaime going to try to rescue Cersei, or kill her?" was it clear what he intended? Or did he keep changing his mind?
So, did killing the white walker king fix the thousand year winter? Or not? That feels kind of important, it doesn't really matter what happens at king's landing if everyone in the continent, or possibly the world, dies of cold and starvation a few years later. I'm guessing it if hasn't been mentioned this is ok now? But was it addressed, or did the show never bring up endless winter in the first place?
I think they didn't really touch on "fire magic coming back into the world" either? Or do we know if that was caused by dragons, or caused dragons, or something else? Do we know if we have any source of more dragon eggs, or is Drogon it, dragon-wise?
Opinions
People had strong reactions to the "Dany kills everyone" ending. And several other things.
It feels to me like, all the building for all the relevant character arcs was there, but in the wrong order.
I don't know, but I've seen several other shows and books have the problem that they charted out a reasonable ending, but then as the series naturally progressed the characters grew past that, and then the author(s) couldn't let go of the original planned ending. I think it's worse in some ways on TV, because there's so many different constraints and different creative inputs, and different real-world time, it's more likely the characters will grow like that. But it's worse in some ways in books, because there's usually a single author with a driven vision. It's extremely common in first drafts, but often the author either puts in the justifications for it, or accepts they need to change the ending.
It feels like here, the show runners must have known where they intended to end up. But enough stuff was going on in the middle that had to be done well, and they wanted to avoid spelling out what would happen to too many people, that it was hard to do set-up properly. So there were plenty of hints about whether Dany might go bad, but there wasn't a consistent narrative of "she's getting more out of control" or "she has intermittent fits of rage and returns to normal". So some people read the hints, and other people wrote them off as inconsistent writing, and had different reactions to the last episode.
It looks like something similar happened to several of the other major arcs. Jaime's resurgence of care for Cersei, but more of a "lets run away together" instead of "let me go to war for you" fits the character fine. But he's slowly been growing into a more balanced person, when she's spent several series getting more and more out of control. If he'd already reached balance, and then reverted after all, it would have been a lot more poignant, but because of the pacing it felt like he'd JUST reached some sort of equilibrium, and then an episode later he was right back where he was in season 1.
And Arya stepping back from being an assassin makes sense, especially with the comments from the hound. They wouldn't even really have to change much. But it feels like the show hadn't really committed to how much she'd already done: she's killed an awful lot of people in quite grisly ways. The hound's speech shouldn't be so much "don't become me" as "what have you already become, are you sure you wouldn't like a chance at peace, now you've mostly succeeded"?
Musings
There were enough hints that things might end badly, from both the books and the shows, the result in this episode fits all the set up perfectly. I almost feel like I should have predicted it more specifically, but I hadn't: I'd envisaged Dany going bad earlier or later, but not really at just that moment, even though in retrospect it makes a lot of sense.
I'm guessing that the major plot points of this season (defeating the wights, dany destroying king's landing, whatever happens next episode) come from GRRM's outline, but that his route there would have been a bit different, just because he had a slightly different combination of characters in play.
Hopefully he would have been able to chart out the character arcs more consistently. But otoh, he was bogged down with his own problems trying to coordinate many minor plot threads who'd all ended up in the wrong places. I think the books are at a point it would be extremely hard to write a satisfying ending.
I think I've reached the point where I think it's probably better he declares finishing bankruptcy now. I know that's incredibly hard, but I think we know enough about what will happen from the show, and if he releases some snippets, that will give closure. And I would still like to read some of the remainder, but I don't think it will really work. Maybe skip ahead and just write a cut-down last volume and let the inbetween bits be implicit? Or just spend the time writing new things.
ETA
I haven't seen it, but it sounds like the specific moment Dany went off the rails may have been poorly motivated. Like, this sort of thing usually happens when we clearly establish a character is (a) usually good, but sometimes not (b) reacts badly to a particular trigger (c) experiences that trigger in a situation which is already high stakes and needing decisive action one way or the other. And some of that happened, but it sounds like she'd already won, and then just murdered the city for no reason? So it sort of fits, but I'm not surprised that rang true for some people and not others.
Like, lots of people said "it felt like it came from nowhere" and lots of people said "there was plenty of warning Dany was like this", and I think both are true: there was plenty of warning this would happen at SOME point, but it felt really abrupt it happened right then.
But unsurprisingly I have opinions :)
Questions
So there was lots of people asking, "Was Jaime going to try to rescue Cersei, or kill her?" was it clear what he intended? Or did he keep changing his mind?
So, did killing the white walker king fix the thousand year winter? Or not? That feels kind of important, it doesn't really matter what happens at king's landing if everyone in the continent, or possibly the world, dies of cold and starvation a few years later. I'm guessing it if hasn't been mentioned this is ok now? But was it addressed, or did the show never bring up endless winter in the first place?
I think they didn't really touch on "fire magic coming back into the world" either? Or do we know if that was caused by dragons, or caused dragons, or something else? Do we know if we have any source of more dragon eggs, or is Drogon it, dragon-wise?
Opinions
People had strong reactions to the "Dany kills everyone" ending. And several other things.
It feels to me like, all the building for all the relevant character arcs was there, but in the wrong order.
I don't know, but I've seen several other shows and books have the problem that they charted out a reasonable ending, but then as the series naturally progressed the characters grew past that, and then the author(s) couldn't let go of the original planned ending. I think it's worse in some ways on TV, because there's so many different constraints and different creative inputs, and different real-world time, it's more likely the characters will grow like that. But it's worse in some ways in books, because there's usually a single author with a driven vision. It's extremely common in first drafts, but often the author either puts in the justifications for it, or accepts they need to change the ending.
It feels like here, the show runners must have known where they intended to end up. But enough stuff was going on in the middle that had to be done well, and they wanted to avoid spelling out what would happen to too many people, that it was hard to do set-up properly. So there were plenty of hints about whether Dany might go bad, but there wasn't a consistent narrative of "she's getting more out of control" or "she has intermittent fits of rage and returns to normal". So some people read the hints, and other people wrote them off as inconsistent writing, and had different reactions to the last episode.
It looks like something similar happened to several of the other major arcs. Jaime's resurgence of care for Cersei, but more of a "lets run away together" instead of "let me go to war for you" fits the character fine. But he's slowly been growing into a more balanced person, when she's spent several series getting more and more out of control. If he'd already reached balance, and then reverted after all, it would have been a lot more poignant, but because of the pacing it felt like he'd JUST reached some sort of equilibrium, and then an episode later he was right back where he was in season 1.
And Arya stepping back from being an assassin makes sense, especially with the comments from the hound. They wouldn't even really have to change much. But it feels like the show hadn't really committed to how much she'd already done: she's killed an awful lot of people in quite grisly ways. The hound's speech shouldn't be so much "don't become me" as "what have you already become, are you sure you wouldn't like a chance at peace, now you've mostly succeeded"?
Musings
There were enough hints that things might end badly, from both the books and the shows, the result in this episode fits all the set up perfectly. I almost feel like I should have predicted it more specifically, but I hadn't: I'd envisaged Dany going bad earlier or later, but not really at just that moment, even though in retrospect it makes a lot of sense.
I'm guessing that the major plot points of this season (defeating the wights, dany destroying king's landing, whatever happens next episode) come from GRRM's outline, but that his route there would have been a bit different, just because he had a slightly different combination of characters in play.
Hopefully he would have been able to chart out the character arcs more consistently. But otoh, he was bogged down with his own problems trying to coordinate many minor plot threads who'd all ended up in the wrong places. I think the books are at a point it would be extremely hard to write a satisfying ending.
I think I've reached the point where I think it's probably better he declares finishing bankruptcy now. I know that's incredibly hard, but I think we know enough about what will happen from the show, and if he releases some snippets, that will give closure. And I would still like to read some of the remainder, but I don't think it will really work. Maybe skip ahead and just write a cut-down last volume and let the inbetween bits be implicit? Or just spend the time writing new things.
ETA
I haven't seen it, but it sounds like the specific moment Dany went off the rails may have been poorly motivated. Like, this sort of thing usually happens when we clearly establish a character is (a) usually good, but sometimes not (b) reacts badly to a particular trigger (c) experiences that trigger in a situation which is already high stakes and needing decisive action one way or the other. And some of that happened, but it sounds like she'd already won, and then just murdered the city for no reason? So it sort of fits, but I'm not surprised that rang true for some people and not others.
Like, lots of people said "it felt like it came from nowhere" and lots of people said "there was plenty of warning Dany was like this", and I think both are true: there was plenty of warning this would happen at SOME point, but it felt really abrupt it happened right then.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 12:20 pm (UTC)Jaime clearly meant to rescue Cersei and take her off to ... parts East ... and get away from it all. He never wanted her dead, certainly not since she was having his baby. Maybe he is out of touch with how horrid she's become; but you play the game of thrones and you Win or you Die, and Jaime though 'fuck off to Volantis' was an option and he was dead wrong. Rocks Fall Everyone Dies.
The showrunners 'after the show' segment had 'it got personal for Dany'; personal would have been flying up to Cersei and flaming her; not burning ALL OF KING'S LANDING... she's snapped completely. I do buy it as in character. It was quite shocking; just after KL surrendered and you had a glimer of 'Tyrion did it' and 'go team sneak attack' aaaaaand DRACARYS. Arya only got a brief moment of terrified running through KL being 'I can be human' and now she's got a Pale Horse aaaaaand, yeah, the list has a new name. Jon Snaw might just about have a clue now, maybe.
I prefer books, I like having more time to think about things and get in people's heads; but I don't think the FLAME THEM ALL was totally out of left field at all. Then again I was rooting for ICE ZOMBIE DEATH.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 12:20 pm (UTC)-Eudoxia
no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-05-15 06:35 pm (UTC)I enjoyed Arya's Crowning Moment Of Awesome, but a) so the spooky undead king turns up to a siege on a spooky undead flying beast and thinks he's winning when he gets unexpectedly stabbed up by a woman, have we perhaps seen this done before (and much better)?
b) they drag it out interminably, we spend about fifteen minutes with every named character who isn't Arya about to die, at which point we naturally go "sheah, right" and also are confused next episode when they appear to have lots of troops left, and since we haven't seen Arya for those fifteen minutes we are not surprised at all since it has been so massively telegraphed.
Also, suppose you are riding a dragon, and a wooden fleet has just discharged all their ballistas at your other dragon, what do you do next? Please take into account that your only approach to all problems is setting people on fire.